With Tesco posting a record breaking pre-tax loss of £6.4 billion, questions are being ask about where it all went wrong.

The trouble has been brewing for a while at the supermarket giant…

At the beginning of the month Tesco in Kirkcaldy shut their doors for the last time, with the loss of 200 jobs. It will save the company a million pounds per year, yet devastate an already blighted community. The local MP had led the campaign to keep the shop open. Doomed, I tell you, doooooomed.

The head of UK investment banking for Lehman Brothers when the doomed financiers went under has turned his life around and is now seeking revenge: to the tune of a £75,000 donation to the Tories. According to a profile in Globe and Mail, the appropriately named Michael Tory “went to bed on Sept. 14, 2008, with a feeling of dread”, then the next day “found himself out of a job and almost out of money”.

“It went up in smoke that day,” says Tory, but in the years that followed he set up his own firm and has made enough to be writing large cheques to the party that shares his name. All in it together… a true success story of a hardworking person winning the global race etc.

The most shared story on the blog this year was Guido’s investigation into the Office of Gordon and Sarah Brown. Since leaving Downing Street, Gordon has raised over £3 million to support charitable projects yet has given less than a £1 million to charity. Nearly three-quarters of the money raised has gone on his office and globe-trotting travel expenses that run at over £10,000-a-week. Despite Gordon claiming he does not profit from the arrangement and that all the income goes either directly to charities or to support other charitable public service projects.

The former Prime Mentalist then got very upset when Guido went on the BBC’s Daily Politics to share the story with a wider audience, demanding that the interview be removed from iPlayer. Guido readers can still watch it here:

All that jet-setting meant the people of Kirkcaldy weren’t seeing much of Gordon, so it will hardly have come as a surprise to them when on another foreign junket McMental admitted he saw himself as an “ex-politician”, despite still taking his £67,000-a-year MP salary.

And so, in December, Gordon finally announced he is making his lack of parliamentary attendance official by quitting at the election. With the old media doing their favourite greatest hits, Guido couldn’t resist his own tribute.

Gordon Brown will tonight finally announce he is making his lack of parliamentary attendance official by quitting at the next election. This website was taking the p**s out of the former Prime Mentalist way before it was cool, but with the old media doing their favourite McMental greatest hits today, Guido couldn’t resist. Never forget the curse of Jonah:

Scottish nationalists have reacted with characteristic charm and good grace to their referendum defeat. The following petition now has more than 10,000 signatures:

According to the petitioner, “because Scotland is sick of listening to your wobble-faced lies, you useless absentee ex-politician sh*tebag”. They’ve got 10,000 signatures, and Guido reckons they could get 10,000 more…

It is reported this afternoon that Big Six energy bad boys EDF have come out against Scottish Freedom:

“EDF Energy has warned that Scottish independence would herald massive uncertainty for the energy sector, accusing Alex Salmond of failing to answer a series of fundamental questions over issues such as nuclear waste. In a memo to the energy giant’s 15,000 staff – 1,200 of whom are based in Scotland – Vincent de Rivaz said those voting on Thursday’s referendum had “enormous responsibility” and warned the outcome “will affect EDF Energy and its employees”.

It will come as no surprise to regular readers that the EDF’s External Communications Director is one Andrew Brown – Brother of McDoom, the Former Prime Mentalist and self-declared saviour of the Union. Brothers in arms.

Penance is up. Damian McBride left Catholic aid charity Cafod two weeks ago and has spend some time working on the paperback version of his memoirs, amongst other writing projects. So expect more helpful blog interventions…

Wondering what he might do next, Guido asked Mad Dog if he was off to spin for the Yvette for Leader campaign. He laughed, heartily…

Gordon Brown tried his very hardest not to flip out in a room full of journalists as he gave the Press Gallery lunch earlier, but he managed just 3 minutes before having a crack at the Sun. He saved his true venom for Sam Coates of the Times though, who has had the impenitence to question Brown’s financial arrangements since he left office. Asked if he wished he had stood down at the last election, Brown replied “when I hear you, sometimes I do.”The fake smile failed to mask the snarl.

As questions mounted about standing down and how little time he had spent in Westminster, McMental quipped: “it’s lovely to see you but I have no desire to be part of frontline politics.” Clearly, given his Commons attendance.

Speaking to journalists at today’s Press Gallery lunch, the Prime Mentalist has put paid to any faint hopes that England have in Brazil, hardly helping the Better Together campaign either:

“I will support England in World Cup.”

You might as well fly home now boys.

Despite this devastating turn of events, Eric Pickles is refusing to give up hope. The Three Lions flag will fly from the top of DCLG on Thursday, for the first day of the World Cup. “We chipped in to buy the flag at no expense to the taxpayer,” they assure Guido. Pickles hopes to recover some luck for England – his namesake Pickles the dog recovered the stolen World Cup trophy in 1966.

Unionists can pack up and go home: the Prime Mentalist has surfaced up in Scotland to launch Labour’s anti-independence campaign. McMental reckons he has worked out how to win round freedom fighters north of the border, laying into the party that has just won its first MEP in the country. Gordon told United With Labour this morning:

“I detest the politics of UKIP.”

That would be the same Gordon Brown who famously promised “British jobs for British workers”, a slogan deemed too politically incorrect for UKIP to copy. The same Gordon Brown who adopted the BNP’s “Gulags for slags” policy at Labour’s 2009 party conference.

He used to get up to far worse than what he is claiming to detest today…

The Son of Brown has picked up another excellent tip from his political patriarch – having a good dig up his nose in public. Though in a sign of how much progress Labour has made since the last election, at least Ed attempted to mask his nasal mining with a tissue.[…] Read the rest